HRW condemns Russian rights crackdown

HUMAN Rights Watch has condemned the Russian authorities under President Vladimir Putin for unleashing the toughest crackdown against civil society since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The repressions against critics come after Putin returned to the Kremlin for a third term in May in the face of unprecedented protests against his 13-year rule.

The crackdown caps a decade of "soft" authoritarianism and unleashes a new era where Kremlin critics and rights activists are openly harassed and freedoms further eroded, the New York-based group says.

"The Kremlin in 2012 unleashed the worst political crackdown in Russia's post-Soviet history," the rights watchdog said in an English-language statement released in Moscow accompanying the release of its annual world report on Thursday.

"This (2012) has been the worst year for human rights in Russia in recent memory," the rights group quoted Hugh Williamson, its Europe and Central Asia director, as saying.

After returning to the Kremlin for a third term despite unprecedented protests against his 13-year rule, Putin signed off on a raft of laws in what critics saw as a bid to quash dissent.

The new legislation re-criminalised slander, raised fines for misdemeanours at opposition protests and forced non-governmental organisations that receive foreign funding to carry a "foreign agent" tag in a move seen as a throwback to Soviet times.

The New York-based group also criticised Russia's preparations for the 2014 Olympic Games, saying authorities took away homes from hundreds of families in the resort town of Sochi, which will host the world's premier winter event.